Whether through its own publications or as a voice in the media and specialist articles, Dezentrum shapes discourse on digital transformation, democracy and social change. In this collection, we show where our perspectives are already having an impact: from interviews and essays to guest contributions.
The Masterplan
The future will come at a high price: digital transformation, deindustrialization, and the energy crisis are all causing additional public expenditures. Could a universal basic income be a policy that cushions these crises by providing financial security? For Mein Grundeinkommen Deutschland, Dezentrum has prepared a potential analysis that explores this idea.
Podcast with Jeannie Schneider on the basic income podcast Bedingungslos (June 2025. in German)
‘Would you want to know that you were diagnosed by artificial intelligence?’
Interview with Effy Vayena by Ramona Sprenger in Sanitas Health Forecast (June 2025)
AI promises enormous advances in medicine: more accurate diagnoses, more personalised therapies, more efficient processes. At the same time, it brings back old questions about privacy, fairness and autonomy in a new dimension. In an interview, bioethicist Effy Vayena from ETH Zurich says that we should not see AI as a threat, but as something we can actively shape – with clear ethical guidelines, regulatory sandboxes and an informed society.
Read more in the Sanitas Health Forecast 2025.
‘What kind of future do you want?’
Text by Ramona Sprenger in Sanitas Health Forecast (June 2025)
A conversation with futurist Bertalan Meskó about how AI is changing medicine, from automated image diagnostics and personal health apps to digital twins for drug testing. He describes three stages of development: from AI-supported consultations to wearables and possible implants. He emphasises that it is ultimately our decision what future we shape. Ideally, one in which professionals, patients and AI work together as a team for longer, healthier lives.
Read more in the Sanitas Health Forecast 2025.
Excerpts from the Sanitas Health Forecast 2025
Goodbye privacy! – How Tinder, Spotify and others reveal your intimate details
Lukas Hess as guest expert on SRF Impact Reportage
Our mobile phones monitor us and know our location: for many, this is probably no longer a surprise. Why should we care? Location data is being shared. Thousands of apps such as Tinder, Spotify and Candy Crush sell it to data brokers. Once the data is online, we no longer have any control over what happens to it. Research by SRF Impact shows that our data can be used for much more than just personalised advertising. Dezentrum partner Lukas Hess researches digital surveillance and talks in the report about the dangers of data misuse – especially for people who are persecuted because of their sexual orientation, religious affiliation or political activism.
Technological progress and the search for desirable futures
Text by Ramona Sprenger in the VSAO Journal (January 2025)
Futurology is not about predicting the future, but about working together to develop desirable future scenarios. Technologies have always been accompanied by hopes and fears – from the visions of science fiction to current debates about AI in medicine. With projects at Dezentrum, we use participatory methods such as scenario techniques and future experiments to create tangible images of possible futures and make them tangible in small steps. This creates scope for creativity that we as a society can use together.
From Gaza to the internet: For humanity everywhere
Winter speech by Malik El Bay at Karl*a der*die Grosse (January 2025)
In his winter speech, Malik El Bay advocates for equality and universal human rights and shows how selectively these often apply, for example in the case of religious freedom in the minaret initiative or the silence on Israel's war crimes in Gaza. He asks whether the internet has failed in the face of fake news, filter bubbles, algorithmic bias and depression among young people. He therefore calls for digital infrastructures such as social media to be treated as public goods so that they serve everyone.
Malik El Bay's winter speech on 23 January 2025 at Karl*a der*die Grosse
Episode 2 – Jeannie Schneider
Podcast with Jeannie Schneider on 500m+ | The Podcast of the Century (November 2024)
Jeannie Schneider is convinced that the future is what we make of it. As a partner at the Think & Do Tank Dezentrum, she conducts research at the intersection of technology, politics, society and participatory change. But how can processes be designed in such a way that they not only enable people to be heard, but also allow for genuine co-determination?
Text by Flurin Hess in metron special issue 40 on the topic of co-determination and obstinacy (annual edition 2024)
Less hierarchy means more participation – and with it the question of how we decide when we all decide. The shift from consensus to consent is a step towards a broadly supported decision. After all, a decision is only really good if everyone involved is convinced to implement it.
Text by Flurin Hess for the Mercator Foundation Switzerland journal on the topic of collaboration
An expanded network, additional resources, more knowledge: collaboration enables public welfare organisations to significantly increase their impact. For collaboration to work, there are a few things to keep in mind. Dezentrum partner Flurin Hess is involved in various collaboration projects in leading roles. He shared his experiences in the latest edition of the Mercator Foundation Switzerland's online format ‘Wie geht das?’ (How does it work?).
Interview with Ramona Sprenger in swissfuture magazine (December 2024)
In the interview, Ramona Sprenger, Dezentrum partner and board member of swissfuture, talks about how we can actively shape digital futures. She describes why it is not enough to simply accept technologies, but why we must create social, legal and ethical frameworks so that digitalisation serves the common good – and how scenarios and experiments help us to find out what kind of future we really want.
Utopia or dystopia? We determine the future of tomorrow today
Mirko Fischli in the Swiss Pioneers podcast (15 September 2023)
Shareholder value is no longer enough: ‘With all the crises on the horizon, we as a society should imagine a desirable future that we can all believe in and work towards together.’
Podcast with Ramona Sprenger on the Demokratzer podcast (February 2022)
What does it take for a democracy to function in 2051? What new opportunities for participation will technological progress bring? And where do the dangers lie? Ramona Sprenger from Dezentrum and Luc Oggier from Polit-Forum Bern discuss the democracy of the future. In doing so, they build a bridge between the exhibition ‘Digital Democracy’ at Polit-Forum Bern and the exhibition ‘Monument 2051’ at Berner Generationenhaus.
What should and could a desirable democracy look like?
Podcast with Anna Boos on Futurepodcast (January 2022)
In this episode, Regula Stämpfli and Anna Boos discuss digitality, participation and democracy. On behalf of the Foundation for Technology Assessment, the Dezentrum, co-directed by Anna Boos, developed future scenarios for a digital democracy in 2050. The scenarios were developed in interdisciplinary workshops, translated into short stories and artefacts, and exhibited at the Polit-Forum Bern. Anna Boos explains the method and why it is important to think about the future in diverse ways.
